Social networking and other networked tools have become an increasingly important part of professional and personal lives. As online tools have grown in popularity, these tools have allowed web users to generate access and link more and richer data sources. With this growth, these tools have grown in their potential to provide insight into relationships between humans and concepts. A problem that is presented by these increasingly rich webs of information is their complexity.
Among the traditional tools utilized in organizing access to information networks are search engines. Common electronic information “search engines” and search technology providers include: AOL, Northern Light, Yahoo, Google, AlltheWeb, Infoseek, Teoma, AltaVista, AskJeeves, HotBot, Inktomi, LookSmart, Lycos, FAST, Overture, About.com, Roadrunner, various Microsoft search engines, FindWhat.com, E-spotting, Search.com, and A9.com. Typically, these search engines provide textual, “key word,” word and/or text based searching as human interface options for access to associated electronic information. Incorporation of “Boolean” connector (such as “and,” “or,” “not,” etc.) functionality and/or “wild characters” (such as * or $) have proven beneficial. It is common for web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and so forth to incorporate an interface, or, interfaces, to one or more of these search engines.
As the numbers and types of information in searchable networks have expanded, they have become increasingly difficult for the web users who have created them to understand. This problem has become exacerbated through the explosion of online information associated with Web 2.0 technologies. Web 2.0 is a catch-all term for a group of technologies which include web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the Internet. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, and blogs. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.
Individuals, community members, employees, shareholders and customers are all impacted by the development of these complex online networks. Locating, accessing and utilizing all of this electronic information sometimes presents a daunting task. This is especially true with regard to non-structured electronic information that is arranged in the ad hoc webs generated as web user's link to each other's information. Unlike the almost universally utilized Dewey decimal system for locating items in physical libraries, a diverse array of “standards” has been introduced for accessing electronic information.
These networks can be built by web users interacting with digital networks that transmit and receive many different media and messages. When uploaded, these media and messages can become linked with the web user's online profiles and interests. As different web users link to other's profiles and data, rich networks are created. Typically, the information in these networks is simply listed in chronological order. Trying to follow a page of updates by hundreds of “friends” results in a disorganized and never-ending list of content with no real structure in which to make sense of all the data. Still further, organizing and distilling this information is a difficult and unsolved task in the art.
Accordingly, there exists the need for an improved electronic information organization and access system that facilitates quick and efficient information gathering and understanding for networks of data created by concepts, pages and data sources over the Internet.